Field of the Invention
Aspects of the present invention generally relate to an image capture apparatus, an image capture processing system, and a method for capturing an image.
Description of the Related Art
In these years, information is more and more digitized in medical institutions such as hospitals, and electronic medical records for managing diagnostic information regarding patients are being introduced. In the electronic medical records, diagnostic histories of patients, medication information, operation information, images of affected areas, X-ray images, and the like are managed in a unified manner, and data may be easily shared and reused. In addition, in accordance with recent increases in the capacity of storages, a large number of digital images of affected areas and the like may be captured and stored in the electronic medical records.
In such an environment, images of patients are often captured using digital cameras and the captured images are stored in the electronic medical records as clinical records. Especially in dermatology, surgery, and nursing, images of wounds, operative scars, and decubitus ulcers (bedsores) of patients are regularly captured using digital cameras, and changes in the affected areas over time are observed.
When the digital cameras are used in such a manner, doctors in charge do not necessarily capture images. It is possible that hospital photographers, nurses, or visiting nurses outside hospitals capture images in accordance with instructions from the doctors. In this case, the doctors need to provide basic information such as the names and identifiers (IDs) of target patients and image capture instructions including target portions and the number of images to be captured, and photographers need to capture images while referring to the instructions from the doctors.
In consideration of these circumstances, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-60239, a method for inputting a target portion of a patient is proposed in which a three-dimensional image of the patient is displayed on a screen when a doctor issues an image capture order and the order is easily issued when the doctor has directly specified the target portion in the displayed three-dimensional image.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-60239, however, issuance of an image capture order by a doctor is described but how a photographer captures an image while referring to the image capture order is not described.